by Rick Hampson, USA TODAY

by Rick Hampson, USA TODAY

FREEPORT, N.Y. - Fear of massive storm Sandy's wall of water forced a flight to higher ground Monday across Long Island, a flat, densely settled finger of land with a vast, low-lying, high-priced coastline that was hit by Hurricane Irene just 14 months ago.

Places that resonate in the national imagination - Amityville, Levittown, Fire Island, the Hamptons - were shaken up by a storm that began to cause flooding a full 12 hours before it made landfall to the south.

"I don't know if you are religious, but we don't know what God has in mind this time,'' said Mike Leshore, who fled to a shelter with his 1-year-old son.

Leshore, 21, sought refuge at Levittown Memorial High School. He said he left home only because he was caring for his 1-year-old son, Joel. Although his father stayed at home, he said, "I figure better safe than sorry.''

But reaction to the storm was mixed. For every Long Islander who moved into a hotel, shelter or friend's place, others seemed intent on frolicking along the shore, enjoying the feel of the wind and the sight of the waves.

David Patel, clerk at the Sayonara Motel on State Route 110, said he had plenty of vacancies -- more than during Irene.

The flooding didn't wait for Sandy's arrival. Water began sloshing north from the ocean bays before dawn Monday. Evacuation orders for waterfront areas had gone out the previous day, but not everyone heeded them.

Ocean water edged up Guy Lombardo Avenue here and reached the Bagel Dock Café, whose front windows were boarded with plywood that bore the spray-painted announcement, OPEN. Outside, refugees from the flooded zone trooped past. One man carried a dog in his arms.

A Bagel Dock employee, Danielle Eddinger, said she'd recently moved north from Vero Beach, Fla. "I lived through (hurricanes) Charley and Francis in 2004,'' she said. "And now this.''

But she said she was impressed by Yankee storm preparations. "To me, this is really just another storm. I'm not worried. I think we'll be OK.''

The water steadily moved inland, passing Merrick Road, a traditional high-water mark here. "You don't need a camera,'' a driver waiting at a flooded intersection yelled out his window at a journalist. "You need a life preserver!''

The Long Island Power Authority said it had "de-energized'' Fire Island -- cut off the power -- after most residents of the barrier were evacuated by ferry.

In Levittown, the nation's prototypical post-World War II suburb, Levittown Memorial High School was pressed into service as a shelter with space for up to 500 people.

Anne Lastowski, 55, said she would have stayed put at home in Valley Stream if her husband were not confined to a wheelchair. She said her first night on a cot in the school's gym left her with a sore back.

In Amityville, another coastal town, David Hetterich had his own version of a horror story.

This month he spent $1,000 on landscaping and a newly seeded lawn. On Monday morning, a fire department SUV from a neighboring town pulled a U-turn -- unnecessarily, Hetterick said -- on his lawn.

"He said, 'This is an emergency,' '' said Hetterich, who was trying to level the ground with a rake. It was raining. "I wished I'd pulled him out of the car and handed him this rake.''

An even bigger threat to the lawn was visible a few hundred feet away -- a rising tide of saltwater in an inlet behind his house.

Hetterich, 50, has lived in Amityville all his life. He said he would ride the storm out in place. "This house was built in 1902,'' he said, "and it's never had water in the basement.''